The Cirque de Navacelles
A spectacular abandoned meander, Grand Site de France, up on the causse.
The Cirque de Navacelles is one of the most recognisable landscapes in the southern Massif Central, and one of the few geological curiosities that genuinely delivers on arrival. It is classified a Grand Site de France, and the Causses and Cévennes area it belongs to is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The formation is an abandoned meander. The Vis once described an enormous loop through the causse; as it cut down, it eventually breached its own meander at the base, taking a short cut and leaving an isolated rocky spur at the centre, with the hamlet of Navacelles sitting at the bottom of the bowl some three hundred metres below the level of the plateau.
You take the cirque in from the viewpoints built along the rim. That is where the view makes most sense: you can read the old bed, the spur, the tiny village and the present river. There are viewpoints on both sides (the Blandas rim to the north, the Larzac to the south) and it is worth stopping at both if you have time, as the light and the angle differ considerably.
The road down to the hamlet is narrow, tightly hairpinned and impressive. It is entirely driveable, but it wants a confident driver and is no place for a large vehicle. At the bottom there is the river, a waterfall, and somewhere to swim. Walking back up from the hamlet, on the other hand, is a real hike, and not one to start in mid-afternoon in summer.
Allow half a day if you stop at the viewpoints, a full day if you go down and combine it with the Gorges de la Vis, which is the programme we would suggest.
